BIOETHICS AND LAW - A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE

In most Western countries, health law bioethics are strongly intertwin ed. This strong connection is the result of some specific factors that , in the early years of these disciplines, facilitated a rapid develop ment of both. In this paper, I analyse these factors and construe a de velopment theory existing of three phases, or ideal-typical models. In the moralistic-paternalistic model, there is almost no health law of explicit medical ethics and the little law there is is usually based o n traditional morality, combined with paternalist motives, the objecti ons to this modal are that its paternalism and moralism are unacceptab le, that it is too static and knows no external control mechanisms. In the liberal model, which is now dominant on mast Western countries, l aw and ethics closely cooperate and converge, both disciplines use the same framework for analysis: they are product-oriented rather than pr actice-oriented they use the same conceptual categories, they focus on the minimally decent rather than the ideal, and they are committed to the same substantive normative theory in which patient autonomy and p atient rights are central. However, each of these four characteristics also result in a certain one-sidedness. In some countries, a third mo del is emerging. In this postliberal model, health law is more modest and acknowledges its inherent and normative limits, whereas ethics tak es a richer and most ambitious self image. As a result health law and ethics will partly diverge again.